I've read in alot of stories where people were trying to defend themselves and they said they let out a loud "kiai", and all the sudden either the attacker ran away or the attacked stopped what ever they were doing to the person. I don't get it. Someone please explain how this happens and the significance of yelling kiai without actually performing a strike. Thanks!

There are a few things going on. First is the surprise factor. Surprised people react slowly. Second, the assailant doesn't want to get caught. If I'm a mugger and my prey starts yelling loud to attract everyone's attention, I'm going to run and find someone less troublesome to victimize. Finally, attackers also prefer easily subduable targets. Yelling loudly, in in a kiai sort of way, tells the attacker you're not going to be an easy target, and there's a chance you will fight. Again, easier for the attacker to just give up and find an easier target.

It seems to me you read the old tale of the artisan and the samurai Matsumura. In this tale Matsumra refuses lessons to an artisan (and i'm really simplifying this) and the artisan demands a match. The next day Matsumura stops the artisan with a kihap, who falls to the ground. Philosophically speaking, he used his ki (chi in chinese), the lifeforce that runs through all of us, to stop his opponent. I grew up in a family with a mother and father who were both scientists, so I always look for a way to explain phenomena like these. Modern science cannot explain it, though it has shown that if a person concentrates on focusing thier ki in thier hand for instance, there is actually a raise in body temperature there. I may not believe in ki as Easern philosophy explains it, but I do believe there is something else there that we cannot yet explain.

One last thought I had. Everyone hears about the old lady who lifts a car off her husband, or the mother who breaks down a solid oak door to save her baby inside a burning building. When you focus on what you want to do and not how you do it, you can commit incredible feats. As it is now, I define ki as deep concentration and will power. How it stops assailants, aside from the psychological factors, I know not.

There's a principle known as Occam's Razor. Although not a universal truth, simpler explanations are generally more preferable to more complicated ones simply because they're so...simple. Chi/ki falls on the bad side of Occam's Razor. To my knowledge there are no articles proving the existence of chi/ki in any peer reviewed medical journals. It's much easier to look at the simple solution. People are surprised if you yell loudly at them when they don't expect you to. Muggers don't like loud resisting targets.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by KylejustKyle:There's a principle known as Occam's Razor. Although not a universal truth, simpler explanations are generally more preferable to more complicated ones simply because they're so...simple. Chi/ki falls on the bad side of Occam's Razor. To my knowledge there are no articles proving the existence of chi/ki in any peer reviewed medical journals. It's much easier to look at the simple solution. People are surprised if you yell loudly at them when they don't expect you to. Muggers don't like loud resisting targets.[/QUOTE]

You have caught my intrest with this principle you borought up, would you care to explain what it is meant by "Occam's Razor," I've never heard of it.

Ockham's Razor (also Occam's Razor or any of several other spellings), is a principle attributed to the 14th century English logician and Franciscan friar, William of Ockham that forms the basis of methodological reductionism, also called the principle of parsimony.

In its simplest form, Ockham's Razor states that one should not make more assumptions than needed. When multiple explanations are available for a phenomenon, the simplest version is preferred. A charred tree on the ground could be caused by a landing alien ship or a lightning strike. According to Ockham's Razor, the lightning strike is the preferred explanation as it requires the fewest assumptions.

Variations

The principle is most often expressed as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, or Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, but this sentence was written by later authors and is not found in Ockham's surviving writings. William wrote, in Latin, Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, which translates literally into English as Plurality should not be posited without necessity.

Dave Beckett of the University of Kent at Canterbury writes: The medieval rule of parsimony, or principle of economy, frequently used by Ockham came to be known as Ockham's razor. [1]

The principle of Ockham's Razor has inspired numerous expressions including: parsimony of postulates, the principle of simplicity, the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), and in some medical schools When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.

A re-statement of Ockham's Razor, in more formal terms, is provided by information theory in the form of minimum message length.

Another variant of this law is Thargola's Sword from Nightfall, (originally a short story by Isaac Asimov and later expanded to a novel in conjunction with Robert Silverberg): We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) lived after Ockham's time and has a variant of Ockham's razor. His variant short-circuits the need for sophistication by equating it to simplicity.Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Ockham's Razor is now usually stated as follows: Of two equivalent theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred.

As this is ambiguous, Isaac Newton's version may be better: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.- Wikipedia online encyclopedia

[This message has been edited by nekogami13 V2.0 (edited 01-17-2005).]